There were scuffles as around 30 migrants put up passive resistance when the police, dressed in riot gear, moved in and bundled them onto coaches at Ponte San Ludovico, across the border from the French Riviera resort of Menton.

The migrants were among around 300 who have set up temporary camp in the area in the past five days. They had camped out on the rocky seashore, protesting over France’s refusal to let them cross the frontier.

Migrants react as a group are removed from under a railway bridge by Italian police, in Ventimiglia, Italy

The refugees, many of them from war-torn Sudan and Somalia, as well as Eritrea, where tens of thousands have fled a tyrannical regime, locked arms and held onto sign posts.

In the end they were taken by bus to the nearby town of Ventimiglia, where the Italian authorities will decide their fate.

Some politicians criticised the use of force by the police, who moved in just after dawn.

“The interior ministry could have avoided ordering in the police to move the refugees,” said Nicola Fratoianni, of the Left-leaning SEL party.

“It was a useless and humiliating show of force against people who have already suffered enough. We are dealing with people who are fleeing war.”

But Right-wing politicians said the police operation was long overdue.

Migrants clashed with police as a group are removed from under a railway in Ventimiglia, Italy

“The police are clearing out the clandestine migrants from Ventimiglia. Finally. Some of them are resisting, they want to stay. (Put them on) the first boat, send them home,” Matteo Salvini, the head of the xenophobic, anti-immigration Northern League, wrote on his Facebook page.

“The French are doing well to defend their borders. I wish our government would do the same. Italy can no longer continue to act as a hotel for clandestine migrants,” he said.

Angelino Alfano, Italy’s interior minister, said the migrants should be allowed to cross the French border, and described the scenes of Tuesday morning as "a punch in the eye” for European ideals of freedom of movement.

A migrant is resist's arrest today. EU interior ministers were set to consider a contentious plan to redistribute asylum seekers across Europe today

France insists that under the Dublin Convention, refugees and economic migrants who arrive in Italy should remain there while there applications for asylum are considered.

But Italy has for years flouted that rule, turning a blind eye to migrants who simply walk out of refugee reception centres and head towards northern Europe by road and rail, or even on foot.

He did not specify what options he was considering but Italian media speculated that Rome could start issuing migrants with temporary visas that would give them the right to travel throughout the Schengen zone, a move that would drastically undermine the principles of the Dublin Convention.